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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22464433">ASCEND TO THE STARS</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvanBlack/pseuds/EvanBlack'>EvanBlack</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The X-Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angry scully, F/M, First Kiss, Love, cable car</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:13:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22464433</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvanBlack/pseuds/EvanBlack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder finally makes his move. Nothing goes right...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fox Mulder/Dana Scully</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ASCEND TO THE STARS</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please do not re-post to any other site without writer's permission.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>'Skyland Mountain Mulder? Are you crazy?'</p><p>Scully's eyes blazed at her partner, barely able to believe what she'd just heard. In fact, it was so unbelievable, she repeated it but it didn't sound any more sane the second time round.</p><p>'You've booked us a cabin on Skyland Mountain?'</p><p>'Yes Scully'</p><p>'Ascend to the Stars Skyland Mountain?'</p><p>'Yes Scully'</p><p>'Skyland Mountain where I was ABDUCTED Mulder?!'</p><p>Mulder licked his lips nervously but he got the feeling that Scully had heard him pretty well and it was way too late to pretend that she hadn't ('Skyland Mountain Scully? Are you nuts? That's where you were abducted!! I said the Sky Rider at Six Flags Magic Mountain! World's tallest rollercoaster. You telling me you don't want to go on the world's tallest rollercoaster Scully? I'm wounded.') Nah, she'd never buy it. Scully's hearing was perfect - even when he wished it wasn't.</p><p>'It's just that while I was up there, I noticed it was kinda pretty and--'</p><p>'While you were hanging off a cable-car you noticed it was kinda pretty? Or when you were trying to find me before they took me and performed experiments on me that left me barren, you noticed it was kinda pretty? When was it Mulder? Exactly when did you stop to think: 'After this is all over - if I don't fall to my death and if we ever find Scully and if she's still alive - this would be a swell place to rent a cabin for a few days'?'</p><p>This wasn't going the way Mulder had imagined it would. Not in the slightest.</p><p>They had a case in Virginia off the Blue Ridge Parkway close to Skyland Mountain. Sure, there were motels closer to Rixeyville than the Skyland cabins were, but something told Mulder it would be a good idea to return to Skyland Mountain under better circumstances than they'd enjoyed four years earlier. He was hazy right now on WHY he'd thought it would be a good idea. In fact, he was hazy right now on how he'd become an FBI agent, gone to Oxford or even graduated high school, as it appeared that he was about as dumb as a tree.</p><p>And the awkward thing was, he couldn't even make it right. The cabin was booked and paid in advance and without having to get into a long, embarrassing and fruitless explanation to FBI Accounting, there was nothing he could do about it. Therefore he decided that attack was the best form of defense.</p><p>'That was then, Scully, this is now,' he shrugged. 'I hate to pull rank on you but--'</p><p>Scully gave him a glare that would freeze fire and stormed out of the basement office, slamming the door on the rest of his sentence.</p><p>Mulder drummed his fingers on his blotter for a while, waiting to see whether she was going to come back and wondering what to say if she did. When she didn't, he called her cellphone. He got cut off for some reason he hoped was mechanical, then called again to find it switched straight to voicemail. Trying to sound like everything was fine, he told Scully he'd pick her up at eight sharp the next morning and hung up. He drummed his fingers for another hour, while gnawing his bottom lip and flinching every time he heard the elevator hum. Then he went home.</p><p>*</p><p>Scully was outside her apartment at eight sharp so Mulder was pleased he'd got there at 7.45. He wanted everything to go perfectly today. He knew Scully was pissed at him and he knew she had a right to be. But he had a plan and he hoped fervently that when she saw that (or even before she saw that) then everything would be okay. More than okay. Everything would be wonderful. He was sure it would be wonderful, but right now just the thought of his plan made him break out in a sweat.</p><p>'You feeling okay Mulder?' It was the first thing she'd said to him since a grudging 'Mulder' when she'd got into the car 25 minutes before. 'You're sweating.'</p><p>'I'm hot,' he said.</p><p>'It's ten below Mulder.'</p><p>'It's hot in here.'</p><p>Scully shrugged and tutted and turned her head away. 'Let him burn up,' is what she thought. 'I hope he melts into a puddle of sweat still wearing an ugly tie.'</p><p>Mulder had been thinking about his plan ever since the call came in about the poltergeist in Rixeyville, but really he'd been thinking about it for a lot longer than that. In his heart he'd been thinking about it for years. His plan was this: He was going to tell Scully that it was time they laid the ghost of Duane Barry to rest. And alongside that, the ghost of her infertility. Mulder had worked out a whole speech. It was about how she shouldn't let it define her; couldn't let it ruin her life. How the right man would love her just for herself and not for procreational purposes. If his plan was well received up to that point, he was going to tell Scully how that man ALREADY loved her. Mulder shivered when he thought of saying that bit to Scully. 'That man already loves you Scully.'</p><p>He sincerely hoped she would realize he meant HE loved her and wouldn't say 'What man?'</p><p>Anyway - he didn't want to give his plan away before they were at the perfect place - Skyland Mountain. He'd arranged for the cabin to be filled with flowers, champagne in the fridge, Scully's favourite chocolates beside the bed. HER bed. He had a separate room, just in case his plan was not as successful as he hoped it was going to be.</p><p>But because Mulder wanted everything to be a surprise, he had to suffer the consequences. And the consequences were Scully being a bitch throughout the drive. She turned the heating up. She fiddled with the radio and finally settled on a station playing crackly static; she kept flipping down her visor and checking her make-up even though she looked perfect to Mulder and he'd never seen her even glance in a mirror before today. She also got out a roadmap and started suggesting alternative routes.</p><p>Mulder let Scully play her power games. Let her win them all. Didn't care. He objected to nothing apart from the diversions. Everyone knew women and maps did not mix.</p><p>*</p><p>'Why can't we drive up to the cabin?' Scully whined, looking at the cable car.</p><p>'C'mon Scully... It'll be--' He'd been about to say 'romantic' but that would be giving the game away, so he finished lamely on 'cool'.</p><p>She frowned and elbowed past him to get into the car and he trailed in behind her with their bags, feeling like a hotel bellhop instead of the dashing hero of The Mulder and Scully Show, which is how he liked to think of his life with her.</p><p>She stood with her back to him as the car creaked and swayed into motion, suppressing an unpleasant moment of dizzying deja vu. Then he leaned against the opposite side of the car as it started to rise above the treetops. He wondered when he should start his speech. He wondered HOW. How to get from Scully being tense and irritable to Scully being soft and open and ready to hear how much he loved her.</p><p>The setting sun had set Scully's hair ablaze with copper and gold. It was spectacular.</p><p>'Your hair's on fire,' he said.</p><p>She jerked in panic and flapped at her head with both hands like she was trying to swat a giant bee.</p><p>'Scully Scully! not really!' he strode over and grabbed her flailing arms. 'I just meant in the light of the setting sun - it looks like it's on fire. The colour...'</p><p>'Mulder you MORON!' yelled Scully, shoving him roughly away from her. 'You scared the shit out of me!'</p><p>'I'm sorry Scully.' he let her go and took a step back. Scully's eyes flashed furiously.</p><p>'Why are we here?! Why are we doing this Mulder? Why are you doing this to me?!!'</p><p>Yeah, this was going just great.</p><p>'I, um, don't understand Scully.'</p><p>'Why are you making me come back here? Why would you do that?!'</p><p>'I thought it would be good for you Scully.' Great. Where was the fancy speech he'd practised while shaving? Now it sounded like he'd arranged the trip to teach her a lesson.</p><p>'Good for me Mulder? How could it ever be good for me to come back to this place where I was taken? And where so much was taken FROM me?!' And to Mulder's horror, Scully burst into tears. He tried to put his arms around her and she punched him so hard in the chest that it knocked all the breath out of him.</p><p>'Lay it to rest Scully...' he panted, trying desperately to get back to the plan. 'And Duane Barry...the ghost of it.'</p><p>'The WHAT?'</p><p>'I don't know.' he winced and gasped as he rubbed his solar plexus: 'It's not all about babies Scully! Ruin your life! Any man would love you with babies or without babies or no babies at all.'</p><p>The look on Scully's face was one of such confusion and anger that Mulder wanted to cry. He'd blown it so completely!</p><p>'That man already loves you Scully,' he said miserably, flapping his arms hopelessly and knowing it was all over.</p><p>'What man?!' she yelled.</p><p>Mulder had a coughing fit at that point. Halfway through it he hoped he was going to choke to death but the gods were against him and finally he stopped, breathless and wheezing like a geriatric smoker.</p><p>'What man Mulder? What the HELL are you talking about?'</p><p>'Me.' he sighed. 'I'm talking about me. And you.'</p><p>'And Duane Barry and ghosts and babies.'</p><p>'Well yes,' he conceded, 'but I should've just kept it to me and you Scully. I got ahead of myself.'</p><p>He noticed that Scully wasn't crying any more, which was good in one way, but bad in the way that meant she was focused on him, just when he'd rather she was still cross and looking out of the window at the sunset. The sun had dipped below the horizon now and things had become indistinct and shadowy. The car rumbled over the stanchion halfway up Skyland Mountain and Mulder sighed at the thought of the humiliation that awaited him at the top when they got to the flower-filled cabin. He wondered if he could pretend it was for her birthday. Scully's birthday was months away but he never remembered it, so he could probably get away with that lie.</p><p>'Have you caught up Mulder?'</p><p>'What?'</p><p>'You got ahead of yourself. Have you caught up now?'</p><p>'I guess so,' he shrugged.</p><p>'So you want to tell me what you're talking about Mulder?'</p><p>It was now or never. He had to tell her now or he had to shut up and never mention it again. Or he could open the hatch and throw himself out of the car to almost certain death in the trees below. Right now that didn't seem like a bad option.</p><p>'Nothing, Scully.' There. He'd chosen never. He felt the misery of his choice grip his heart like ice-fingers.</p><p>'Bullshit Mulder,' said Scully mildly. 'You're not a stupid man and you're not a cruel man, so there must be a reason you brought me here that must have seemed either smart or kind at SOME point.'</p><p>'It DID!' Mulder was so relieved to hear her put it like that! 'That's just what happened Scully. I don't know what went wrong. I had everything worked out. In my head, y'know? I had a plan. And it WAS smart and it WAS kind! And then it all went to... '</p><p>'Shit,' she supplied helpfully.</p><p>'Exactly. but in my head it didn't. In my head it wasn't like this at all.'</p><p>Scully looked at him curiously. 'Tell me how it went in your head then Mulder.'</p><p>'It went...' Mulder halted and ran over his speech in his mind. What he could remember of it. Now that he thought about it, it seemed needlessly complex and confused.</p><p>'It went, umm...' he tried again, desperately re-editing in his head to try to distill the speech to its most important elements. Babies and Duane Barry and laying things to rest.</p><p>'Ummmmm...' he tried again.</p><p>'Did it go anything like this Mulder?' said Scully, and kissed his lips.</p><p>Time stood still. The only sound was the creak of the car and the whisper of wind across the cables above their heads. The rattle of the last stanchion broke the spell and Mulder stepped back from Scully, breathless for the second time in five minutes, his lips tingling with the rush of her and his heart full of stars.</p><p>'Yes,' he finally managed. 'That's exactly how it went.'</p>
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